Unseen Immortal of Three Hundred Years - Chap 60
Chapter 60
In the world of celestial masters, it was commonly known that whenever the Celestial Master Xiao exercised judgment over demons, an interrogation was bound to follow.
The soul of the Feng family’s patriarch was enveloped in the golden light of the “Exemption” sword, and he heard Celestial Master Xiao’s chilling voice echoing through his mind, sweeping across like a wind between heaven and earth, asking him, “Why have you come to this point?”
Upon hearing these legendary words, the last bit of consciousness within the Feng family patriarch lingered.
He never imagined that the interrogation he intended for demons would one day be directed at himself. It turns out he was considered a demon too.
Originally, at the very beginning, he was a disciple of the celestial mansion, full of ambition, aspiring to slay monsters and exorcise demons.
Under Celestial Master Xiao’s sword, the scenes of his life flashed by hurriedly amidst the interrogation.
He was one of the rare individuals who had seen the sacred tree and not died.
At the age of twelve, he found himself on the brink of death and saw that towering tree at the summit, its form majestic though somewhat blurry. Yet, he remembered it resembling the apricot blossoms of the mortal world.
Back then, he never thought that he would later hide a tall tower within the Feng family’s estate, embedding within it the shattered branches of that giant tree.
At seventeen, as he passed through the initial capital, upon seeing those enormous tombs, he lamented, “How many heroic bones lie in pity, all from past battles.”
He never imagined that later on, he would drag those lamented bones into his family’s secret grounds, using them to pave a path.
At twenty, he began to make a name for himself, bringing honor to his family. He had heard that in the capital region, sinister spirits often caused trouble, and unnamed cultivators frequently aided the nearby common folk. Upon hearing this, he once said, “If fate allows, I must go and pay a visit.”
At that time, he was unaware that the unnamed cultivator was actually a hermit staying in the capital to construct a tall tower. He could never have imagined that, instead of properly visiting, he would become the very cause of the hermit’s descent into madness.
Becoming a celestial being or a demon, good or evil, seemed to hinge on a single thought.
Unlike many in the celestial mansion, he married young, his partner being his childhood sweetheart. It is often said that couples who meet as teenagers share the deepest love, and they soon had their first child.
Tragically, that child died in the womb and was never born. He comforted his partner for a long time, suggesting that perhaps the child was tainted by demonic energy, but things would get better.
Soon, they were expecting another child, and this time, it nearly ended in another tragedy, but fortunately, they managed to save the baby, a son. However, due to the turmoil within the womb, he was born with somewhat weak constitution.
But what did it matter? He was the child he had fought so hard to save.
A year later, they had a daughter, and compared to the birth of their son, her arrival was much smoother, hence she was more gifted and had a better constitution.
People often say that having both a son and a daughter is a great blessing.
No one could comprehend his emotions during those years, just as no one knew how dearly he treasured his children. He would have lifted them up to the heavens if he could.
He watched his son and daughter grow, teaching them to speak, to read, and to wield a sword—imparting to them everything he had learned in his lifetime.
During those years, he almost forgot about advancing his cultivation, dedicating himself entirely to being a loving father. His peers often teased him about this, but he would just laugh it off, saying, “Consider me bewitched.”
Regrettably, he couldn’t raise his children to adulthood; they both died in their youth, each at the age of twelve—the same age he had faced death.
His partner kept repeating, “Why has this happened? I don’t understand.”
But deep down, he understood that it was destiny coming full circle, a retribution for him. He had not truly died back then, and now he was made to experience a similar agony.
He personally placed his children into their coffins, and from that moment, he never smiled again.
The affectionate father was no more, leaving only a cultivator behind.
By that time, he had already become obsessively focused, although he hadn’t yet realized it himself. At the prime of his life, he devoted himself entirely to cultivation, rapidly advancing his skills. His prowess not only stood out within his own family but also among the cultivators of the mortal realm, making him a figure of renown.
When the sacred tree was sealed, he, who had slain numerous demons and aided many people, forging good karma, and having once witnessed the sacred tree, thus possessing a celestial fate, was appointed as the guardian of the sealed land and was given the surname “Feng.”
They were probably among the rare few in the mortal realm to have received a heavenly decree, but since it concerned a sealed land, it was not something they could discuss with outsiders. Thus, this glorious achievement became a secret known only to the head of the Feng family or the heir apparent.
He was the one who knew the secret but could not speak of it.
That was the first time he experienced a profoundly contradictory and complex feeling, akin to walking in brocade at night.
It was also the first time he realized he wasn’t purely a force for good, burdened by too many worldly desires, especially craving recognition and reward.
He even felt resentment at moments, knowing he had died and been revived, his life stolen and thus owed a price. But having done so much, why couldn’t he settle that debt and find fulfillment?
“Fate is unjust.”
Initially, when such thoughts surfaced, he would suppress them without a word.
Over time, perhaps due to long-standing high status or reaching the pinnacle of his cultivation in the mortal realm, he began to let these thoughts run free.
He indulged in reflections on his life’s journey, evaluating what was worthwhile and what wasn’t. He started to feel entitled to his grievances and dissatisfaction, reasoning that he deserved more.
So, from one day on, he suddenly desired to bring his son and daughter back to life.
Once this idea took hold, it became unstoppable.
The phrase “Consider me mad then,” uttered long ago, became prophetic on this distant day. Without looking back, he embarked on a different path—digging up his children’s coffins at midnight, setting up a formation around them, and then seeking every possible method to revive them.
He would later sometimes think that he must have been insane to believe in that dream.
That was the craziest period of his life. One night, sitting in front of the hall, he suddenly had a bizarre dream in which someone told him, “There’s not entirely no way.”
He thought to himself, truly, what one ponders by day, one dreams of by night, yet he still asked, “What way?”
The person in the dream was incredibly vague, unrecognizable. Though he didn’t know who it was, he naturally addressed them as “Immortal Lord,” likely a habit formed from seeking help far and wide.
He couldn’t recall the appearance or voice of the person in the dream, but he remembered two paths they pointed out to him.
One path suggested he should seek a benefactor, a young girl. This girl had died tragically in her past life and was born into this life with grievances, becoming an orphan at a young age. If he took in the orphan girl as his daughter, resolved the grievances in her fate, and accumulated blessings, then by relying on the orphan girl’s fortune, he would have the chance to see his children again.
The other path, the “Immortal Lord” barely elaborated on, was very simple. He said, “If you really can’t break through, then exchange your own life to return.”
Initially, the head of the Feng family didn’t take the dream seriously until one day, he encountered a skinny, dirty little girl in front of a dilapidated temple.
The temple was a deserted shrine to the deity of unfortunate deaths, and the little girl, like a startled sparrow, was clearly homeless and an orphan.
He was taken aback for a moment, almost as if compelled by some unseen force, he probed the little girl’s spirit and found that indeed, her soul carried grievances. He further used his abilities to investigate the girl’s past life and vaguely discovered that her previous life was also tragically short; her family was destroyed, her parents were killed by enemies. She was left destitute and abducted for a ghost marriage, even had her eyes gouged out, ultimately meeting a miserable end.
He even discovered that after the young girl’s tragic death, she knelt in the temple of the deity of unfortunate deaths, seeking retribution.
Her previous life ended in tragedy, carrying grievances with her fate. An orphan girl.
These details matched exactly with what he had seen in his dream.
From that moment on, he clung to the path pointed out by the Immortal Lord in his dream as if it were a lifeline.
He took the orphan girl back to the Feng family, adopted her as his daughter, and named her Feng Shulan.
Since the death of his children, he had not smiled again, having forgotten how to be a kind father. Thus, his treatment of Feng Shulan was not particularly affectionate, to avoid being reminded of his deceased daughter. He even kept his distance from Feng Shulan.
He provided Feng Shulan with everything but closeness: clothes, food, and careful upbringing. Everyone said he had gained another “pearl in his palm.”
He waited and waited,
Watching Feng Shulan grow up, become independent, slowly showing the demeanor of the next head of the family, becoming a standout among her peers.
But he never encountered the so-called “opportunity,” nor did he ever get to see the children he missed day and night.
He grew more irritable and anxious with each passing day. And so, one day, he regretted his choices.
The Immortal Lord in the dream had pointed out two paths.
Having tried the first path with all his patience exhausted, he could no longer wait. Thus, he began to consider the second option.
Regrettably, the Immortal Lord had not provided more guidance, leaving him with only that brief phrase. He pondered over and over, fixating on two words: exchange life, return.
It is widely known that exchanging lives defies the natural order and is extremely difficult. Returning is even more so.
However, the Feng family was different from others; they guarded a secret divine tree.
With the divine tree’s power, returning was possible, and he guarded the location where the divine tree was sealed.
By then, nearly driven to madness, he saw this as a uniquely fortunate opportunity.
So, he “guarded the theft,” sneaking into the forbidden area quietly.
He didn’t care about the consequences of someone breaking into the forbidden area, whether it would alert anyone, lead to a second sealing, or even worse events.
He didn’t care about anything; he just wanted to return.
And then he succeeded.
Since the technique of exchanging lives required the souls of tens of thousands to pave the way, he traveled far back in time, years before the divine tree was sealed.
He went to the capital’s main burial site, which had the most souls, only to find a tomb keeper there, a solitary cultivator with strikingly handsome features, appearing very young yet with cultivation not inferior to his.
Realizing that brute force would get him nowhere in the capital, he made some moves.
He quietly set up a formation.
The capital was filled with sand and stone, among which the formation stones were extremely difficult to detect. Moreover, his formation wasn’t strong but subtle, undetectable yet capable of gradually exerting a profound influence on the capital over time.
There’s a saying, “Insiders are often blind.”
The solitary cultivator was precisely the insider in this scenario.
Afterward, everything went as smoothly as he had hoped.
He managed to gather tens of thousands of souls and, without anyone noticing, included the high tower as part of the Feng family’s secret grounds, where he placed his children’s coffins.
Originally, his children had died as retribution for his actions. According to his initial plan, all he needed to do was to exchange his own life.
But at the crucial moment, he changed his mind.
With so many people in the Feng family, and him being the head, his death would surely lead to chaos, a loss far outweighing any gain.
He convinced himself with many reasons and eventually sealed the souls along with the coffins.
He decided to find someone who could replace him. After a long selection, he chose a child whose fate was very similar to his own and adopted him as his son.
When he brought the boy into the Feng family, he thought to himself that the child was on the brink of death and would not have survived much longer if he hadn’t found him. “I’m saving him, so it’s only right that he repays me.”
He had only planned to raise this one child to exchange life for life.
However, one day, he encountered Feng Shulan in the wilderness.
By this time, he no longer needed the young girl. He had even walked away, but moments later, he found himself returning.
He still reached out to sense her spirit and discovered some changes in her past life. She hadn’t lingered in the temple of the deity of unfortunate deaths but had entered the cycle of reincarnation early, which is why he encountered her years sooner than he had before.
After much hesitation, he still took the young girl back with him. He adopted her as his daughter, naming her Feng Shulan, just as before.
Yet, he remained distant from his adopted daughter.
Even meeting him was a rare occurrence. He couldn’t comprehend why he would bother to raise a child who served no purpose.
He almost believed he retained a sliver of pure goodness.
Once, during a moment of deep reflection, he questioned himself about it. After a long thought, he concluded that the presence of this child made him somewhat good.
“I am somewhat good.”
He frequently repeated this phrase to himself, as if saying it enough times would make it true.
Until today, until his foster son, Feng Huiming, pierced him with a life-threatening nail, and faced with the Celestial Masters Mansion’s scrutiny, in that moment of soul-shaking realization, he finally understood.
When he constantly told himself that phrase, that semblance of goodness ceased to exist.
In the moment his consciousness began to fade, he suddenly remembered many people he had met in his life. He thought he would remember those for whom he had risked everything, but no.
Instead, he remembered Feng Huiming, with eyes bloodshot, saying “I am relieved,” Feng Shulan, who never called him “father” but only “master,” the boundless graves he saw when passing by Jingguan for the first time, and the spirit of a freelance cultivator shattered so completely it couldn’t be traced upon death.
He wondered if this was some kind of retribution, making these memories haunt him until his end.
Wu Xingxue watched scene after scene flash before him from the interrogation, unavoidably recalling the lines he had cut through upon seeing those massive graves.
He felt as if he could still smell the ever-present cold mist of Jingguan, see the freelance cultivator walking slowly with a lantern through the long night, hear the low whispers of the young disciples, and the wind-like voices of the deceased under the graves.
He stood frozen for a moment, then suddenly furrowed his brows deeply.
He had accepted the heavenly decree, often cutting lines at specific points in the past. The lines he cut in Jingguan belonged to an even earlier time, when the divine tree was not yet sealed, there was no Celestial Capital above, and the Celestial Masters Mansion had not yet summoned him to immortality.
What about Xiao Fuxuan then?
Wu Xingxue grabbed the hand of the person next to him tightly, his fingers clenched as he looked into the other’s eyes, his voice soft with a hint of hoarseness. “Xiao Fuxuan, you say you’ve seen me at the Celestial Masters Mansion in the capital. Who do you think I am?”
Who among them am I?
Once, as a young general, he died protecting the sacred tree, his soul shattered into fragments under that heavenly calamity, unable to fully reincarnate.
Where his blood flowed, white jade essence sprouted; his three lifetimes’ bones were buried in the Celestial Masters Mansion, and those indiscernible soul fragments of his lingered in different unfamiliar bodies.
Those bodies carrying the shattered souls eventually met at the Celestial Masters Mansion due to the inexplicable connections of fate.
But Xiao Fuxuan himself was unaware of these past connections.
All he knew was that his life began with countless shattered souls, witnessing incomplete joys and sorrows in different bodies. Rootless, sourceless, and nowhere to belong.
The wandering cultivator patrolling with a lantern was him, the disciples harboring ominous fates who were taken in were also him, and the silent dead standing amidst the massive graves were also him.
He lingered in the perennial cold mist of the Celestial Masters Mansion for many, many years, until the masked Spirit King broke through the fog.
Countless cycles of life and death, countless tangled threads.
He remembered every single one, watched each time. In the end, he could recognize that person even from just their back.
But now, when the other asked, “Who among them am I?” he still didn’t know how to answer.
Xiao Fuxuan lowered his gaze to Wu Xingxue, then after a while, he reached out and touched the corner of his lips.
Who am I?
I am many among them.
You walked into the mist of the Celestial Masters Mansion countless times.
You killed me, saved me, gazed at me, and missed me again.
